“Would you make the birth certificate an issue if you ran?” she was asked…

“I think the public rightfully is still making it an issue. I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t know if I would have to bother to make it an issue, because I think that members of the electorate still want answers,” she replied.

“Do you think it’s a fair question to be looking at?” Humphries persisted.

“I think it’s a fair question, just like I think past association and past voting records — all of that is fair game,” Palin said. “The McCain-Palin campaign didn’t do a good enough job in that area.”

I will eagerly look forward to hearing from the authors of this legislation as to how they can possibly achieve a half a trillion dollars in cuts without impacting existing Medicare programs negatively and eventually lead to rationing of health care in this country. That is what this motion is all about. This motion is to eliminate those unwarranted cuts.

The new national poll from Public Policy Polling (D) has an astonishing number about paranoia among the GOP base: Republicans do not think President Obama actually won the 2008 election — instead, ACORN stole it.

[…]

The poll asked this question: “Do you think that Barack Obama legitimately won the Presidential election last year, or do you think that ACORN stole it for him?” The overall top-line is legitimately won 62%, ACORN stole it 26%.

Among Republicans, however, only 27% say Obama actually won the race, with 52% — an outright majority — saying that ACORN stole it, and 21% are undecided. Among McCain voters, the breakdown is 31%-49%-20%. By comparison, independents weigh in at 72%-18%-10%, and Democrats are 86%-9%-4%.

[Emphasis mine]

You read that right–a majority of Republicans believe Barack Obama did not legitimately win the 2008 election. They believe that, instead, the community organizing group ACORN stole it for him. Nearly twice as many Republicans believe the election was stolen than believe Obama legitimately won.

Remember, Obama won 2008 in a landslide–he won 53% to 46%, 365 electoral votes to McCain’s 173. For ACORN to have stolen the election, they would have had to manufacture more than 9.5 million votes–Obama’s national margin of victory. ACORN would have had to flip FL, OH, IN, NC, VA, NM, and IA from Republican to Democratic (those being the closest blue states which, combined, gave Obama an electoral vote majority).

I know the right is trying to make ACORN out into some kind of all-powerful left-wing boogeyman, but they’re just a community organizing group, and not a particularly well-funded one at that.

ACORN has received slightly more than $50 million in federal funds in the past 15 years, which averages out to slightly more than $66,000 per state per year–certainly not enough to build a national apparatus capable of stealing 9.5 million votes and 7 swing states.

Maybe this poll is horribly inaccurate, but if it isn’t than the GOP has gone off the deep end. Perhaps this kind of unhinged, off-the-wall craziness is why only 20% of Americans identify themselves as Republican.

Kaine said the key to victory for Democrats in a highly competitive Virginia is recognizing that party members need not be “apologetic” about their affiliation to find success. He noted that about 200,000 more people voted in the Democratic primary for president on a frigid February day in 2008 than cast ballots for Deeds this year, and said McDonnell successfully spooked Deeds by suggesting that Virginians had grown anxious about the Democratic agenda.

“I think the issue of being nervous about the Virginia electorate was overdone and I think Creigh did exactly what the McDonnell campaign hoped he would do, which was distance himself from the president and national issues,” Kaine said.

[Emphasis mine]

The absolute worst thing Democrats can do in 2010 is to abandon their core values.

Democrats lost in 2002 and 2004 because they ran away from their beliefs and tried to act like Republicans. Democrats won in 2006 and 2008 because they embraced and ran on progressive ideals.

I live in VA and I can tell you that Deeds ran an abysmal campaign–it was something you would expect a Democrat circa 2002 to have run. He ran away from his party, away from progressivism and away from his President; Deeds ran a soft, weak campaign steeped in ideological capitulation.

Embracing your base vs. running away from them makes the difference between winning and losing.

Democrats can’t allow themselves to be cowed by the right. Why do you think conservatives are always concern trolling about Democrats being too liberal? It’s because they want to scare Democrats away from progressivism, because weak Democrats create Republican majorities.

Want proof? Just ask Governor-elect Bob McDonnell. I bet he could tell you all about it.